darkoshi

My mom called to tell me that she heard that Jupiter is bright tonight - at opposition - and that it might even be possible to see its moons using binoculars. I thought, fat chance of that for me, but I went and looked. First I had to figure out how to adjust the focus on the binoculars; it's been a long time since I used them, and I was turning the diopter adjustment by mistake. Then, when I was looking at Jupiter, I did see another fainter object to the west-south-west (ie, left-bottom-left) of it, about 8 Jupiter-widths away. Could that be a moon? Based on this diagram, it's probably the star Theta Virginis.

Tonight, I kept having a problem with the binoculars, seeing double. I'm not sure if it is an issue with them or my eyes. To begin with, it wasn't double. Then, when it was, every once in a while, the double vision went away.

Since the moon is almost full, I looked at it through the binoculars too. Wow! Maybe I've never looked at it through binoculars before? That is the clearest I've ever seen the moon, that I can recall. The craters and lines/rays and texture/contours (towards the bottom) are visible, and even a crater sticking out on the left edge between light and dark.

Curiosity rover shows new signs of wheel wear - it's still sending back photos from Mars!? Wow, I didn't realize we still had contact with it.

By the way, it's weird that the moon always looks black & white / grayscale, when the rest of the universe is in color.